Prison Reform and Safety

Debate between Jo Churchill and Robert Neill

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The former Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), rightly drew attention to that on a number of occasions. If we do not turn our prisons into places of education, we will be failing, and we will continue to see reoffending. Part of the problem is the low attainment of people when they arrive in prisons, which is often linked with issues such as social deprivation, a lack of proper parenting and unstable family backgrounds. A particularly high percentage of prisoners have been in care. Low educational attainment is a real problem, and it needs to be tackled.

One of the problems that we have found is that because of other pressures on the system, many establishments are running regimes that are so restricted that it is virtually impossible for prisoners—even those who are well motivated and wish to do so—to gain access to some of the educational facilities that ought to be available. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend (Sir Greg Knight) for that important point.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that prison can offer people a second chance to gain access to education and to find the right track? Charities such as Greener Growth, which works in Norfolk prisons in particular, and with which I work in my constituency, help people to understand and connect with the environment, and to learn about food and nutrition, as well as many of the other basics in life that most of us take for granted.

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely true. I and the Committee recognise the very good work that is being done. What we must do, however, is to ensure that we have a programme of prison reform that genuinely enables us to draw that good work together, and establishes a comprehensive and holistic strategy. For example, the good that is done by many people on existing programmes ought to be reinforced by a more imaginative use of release on temporary licence, but sadly there has been a decrease of some 40% in the use of such release over the last couple of decades. That is one of the indicators that are going in the wrong direction.